Subject: The Bright Future of Reionization with 21 cm and CMB Observations

In the coming decade we will witness the completion of CMB and 21 cm experiments that promise to lift the veil on reionization. Up until now, the details of reionization have remained shrouded in mystery across the chasm of space and time that separates us from the billion years after the big bang in which it occured, more than 12 billion years ago and 30 billion light years away due to cosmic expansion. CMB observations probe the distribution of what we think was a complicated network of growing and overlapping ionized bubbles created by UV and X-ray ancient dwarf galaxies and newborn supermassive black holes, while 21 cm observations probe the neutral patches left behind. As such, these two types of observations provide complementary information about the first billion years. I will discuss the exciting new prospects for understanding reionization by analyzing upcoming 21 cm and CMB observations jointly, emphasizing how simulations can help us avoid the pitfalls associated with teasing out the faint signals from nearby foregrounds, instrumental noise, and systematics.